"I hope my studies may be an encouragement to other
women, especially to young women, to devote their lives
to the larger interests of the mind. It matters little
whether men or women have the more brains; all we women
need to do to exert our proper influence is just to use
all the brains we have."

Florence Rena Sabin was born on November 9, 1871 in
Central City, Colorado, the second daughter of George K.
Sabin, a mining engineer, and Serena Miner Sabin, a
schoolteacher. Her mother died of puerperal fever when
Sabin was seven. She and her older sister Mary grew up in
Denver, in Chicago with their uncle Albert Sabin, and in
Vermont with their paternal grandparents. Both attended
Vermont Academy, and were encouraged to go on to college.

Florence showed an early talent for math and science,
but until high school she hoped for a career as a
pianist. She directed her energies toward academic
studies only after a classmate bluntly informed her that
her musical talent was merely average. At Smith College
(which her sister also attended) she majored in zoology,
and was encouraged by the college physician to study
medicine at Johns Hopkins' new co-educational medical
school. She received her B.S. from Smith College in 1893,
then taught high school for three years to earn enough to
fund her first year of medical training.

Sabin entered the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in
1896, one of fourteen women in a class of forty-five. Her
skill and originality in laboratory classes attracted the
attention of anatomist Franklin P. Mall, one of Hopkins'
outstanding scientists. Mall became Sabin's mentor,
advocate, and intellectual role model, encouraging her
pursuit of "pure"(rather than applied) science, and
suggesting two projects which would help establish her
research reputation. One of these was a three-dimensional
model of a newborn baby's brainstem, which became the
basis of a widely used textbook, An Atlas of the Medulla
and Midbrain, published in 1901. The other project was an
investigation of the embryological development of the
lymphatic system.

After a year's internship at the Johns Hopkins
Hospital, Sabin won a research fellowship from the
Baltimore Association for the Promotion of University
Education for Women, and subsequently published two well-received
papers. In 1902, she became the first woman
faculty member at Johns Hopkins, teaching embryology and
histology in the Department of Anatomy. She was promoted
to associate professor in 1905, and to full professor in
1917, becoming the first woman to hold that rank at Johns
Hopkins.

Sabin stayed on the faculty at Johns Hopkins until
1925, and during that time distinguished herself both as
a researcher and a teacher. She did important work on the
origins of the lymphatic system, demonstrating (by
injecting colored substances into the lymphatic channels)
that its structures were formed from the embryo's veins
rather than from other tissues, as other researchers
believed. She also investigated the origins of blood
vessels, blood cells, and connective tissue. To do this,
she perfected the technique of supravital staining, which
allowed the study of the living cells. In 1924, she
became the first woman president of the American
Association of Anatomists, and the next year, the first
woman elected to membership in the National Academy of
Sciences.

Although she was an inspiring teacher and enjoyed
working with her students, by the early 1920s, Sabin was
longing to devote her full energies to her research. In
late 1923, Simon Flexner, director of the Rockefeller
Institute for Medical Research, invited her to join the
Institute, and head its Department of Cellular Studies.
She accepted his offer, and began her work there in 1925,
the first woman to be appointed a full member at the
Rockefeller Institute.

At the Rockefeller Institute, Sabin led research on
the pathology of tuberculosis. Her team was part of a
consortium of researchers working with the Medical
Research Committee of the National Tuberculosis
Association. During her thirteen years at Rockefeller,
Sabin made major contributions to the understanding of
tuberculosis, in particular by close study of the immune
system responses to various chemical fractions isolated
from the tuberculosis bacteria. Between 1930 and 1934,
she also wrote a biography of her mentor, Franklin P.
Mall, who had died in 1917.

In 1938, Sabin retired from the Rockefeller Institute
and moved back to Colorado to live with her sister Mary.
She maintained a lively correspondence with her research
colleagues, attended conferences, and served on various
advisory and governing boards for organizations such as
the Guggenheim Foundation. In 1944, she was asked to
chair the Health Committee of Colorado's Post-War
Planning Committee. This committee investigated health
services in the state, drafted a series of health bills
later known as the "Sabin Program," and then campaigned
for their passage. Four of the six bills were passed in
1947. After this, Sabin served as chair of an Interim
Board of Health and Hospitals of Denver, and then as
Manager of the Denver Department of Health and Charities
until 1951. In the latter post, she launched a vigorous
campaign to clean up the city, improve its sanitation,
enforce health regulations for restaurants and food
suppliers, and screen the population for tuberculosis and
syphilis. Within two years, Denver's tuberculosis
incidence was reduced from 54.7 to 27 per 100,000, and
the syphilis frequency from 700 to 60 per 100,000.

Sabin was probably the best-known American woman
scientist of her era, and received many awards and honors
during her life. In 1929 the popular magazine, Pictorial
Review, gave her its Annual Achievement Award; a Good
Housekeeping poll in 1931 selected her as one of the
twelve most eminent American women; she received Chi
Omega sorority's National Achievement Award (1932), Bryn
Mawr College's M. Carey Thomas Prize (1935), and fifteen
honorary doctorates. In 1945, she received the Trudeau
Medal of the National Tuberculosis Association for her
earlier work on that disease. In 1951, she received the
Lasker Foundation's Public Service Award for her public
health work in Colorado. The same year, the Medical
School of the University of Colorado dedicated a new
biological sciences building in her honor. In 1959 the
State of Colorado honored her by placing a statue of
Sabin in the National Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol.

Such honors acknowledged Sabin's substantial
scientific and public health achievements, of course, and
some also lauded her for being a role model for women in
the professions. Colleagues, students, and friends,
however, also praised her personal warmth, her
professional and personal generosity, her infectious
energy, curiosity, and passion for scientific
investigation. Sabin's correspondence reveals all these
facets, as well as her love for classical music,
philosophy, travel, good books, and memorable dinner
parties.

Sabin's publications include over 100 scientific
papers, several book chapters, two books--her Atlas of
the Medulla and Midbrain and her biography of Franklin
Mall--and numerous presentations.